Australian English

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Australian English (Australian English)

Spoken in

Australia
speaker approx. 16.5 million native speakers, 3.5 million second speakers
Linguistic
classification
Official status
Official language in Australia (de facto)

Australian English ( AuE ; en-AU ) is the spoken and written variant of English in Australia . Australian English differs from other variants of English, such as British or American English, in its pronunciation. B. by higher vowels in words like bit , bat and bet or very broad diphthongs . There are also some examples of specifically Australian-English vocabulary such as B. cobber ( Eng . 'Mate, friend') or bush in the sense of 'local', 'Australian' or 'rural' in words like bush rat or bushfire . There are also some borrowings from the native languages ​​of Australia, such as B. kangaroo , koala or wombat . Australian English bears many similarities to New Zealand English , but researchers have observed a significant divergence between the two variants since the 1960s, so that Australian and New Zealand English are now viewed as two more distinct variants of English.

classification

From the 16th century onwards, English became a world language , primarily due to the colonial policy of Great Britain in America , Australia , Africa and India . However, each of the former colonies has its own national peculiarities, due on the one hand to the origin of the immigrants and the languages ​​and dialects they brought with them, and on the other hand to the contact with the language of the native inhabitants of the respective countries. As a result, the English language has developed further in the former colonies of Great Britain such as the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand , where it has developed a pronunciation that differs from British English in some cases, often with its own vocabulary and, more rarely, peculiarities in grammar. Such variants of English are in linguistics as national variants or varieties (engl. Varieties ) referred of English. Like British , American , South African or Indian English, Australian English is one of the major national variants of English.

Australian English has the greatest similarities with New Zealand English, so it has been proposed that Australian and New Zealand English be treated together as an English variety of Australasian English . However, research has observed an increasing divergence between Australian and New Zealand English since the 1960s, so that a summary of the two variants as Australasian English is considered obsolete or the subject of intensive research.

history

See also History of Australia

The Australian continent was settled by the first humans about 50,000 years ago, the ancestors of today's Aborigines . The first Europeans under the leadership of James Cook reached Australia in 1770, followed in 1788 by the first settlements around what is now Port Jackson in New South Wales . The Aborigines around this time comprised approximately 300,000 people across Australia who spoke about 250 languages ​​and probably as many dialects .

Australia's colonial era began as a penal colony of Great Britain: from 1788 over 130,000 prisoners were brought from Great Britain to Australia to relieve overcrowded prisons in Great Britain. At the same time, settlers also immigrated to Australia voluntarily, but it wasn't until the mid-19th century that these numbers reached larger numbers. The population of Australia increased from 400,000 in 1850 to 4 million in 1900 to 19 million in 2002.

As a large number of prisoners from Ireland and London were transported to Australia, who also came from lower social classes, this had a great influence on the development of English in Australia. The pronunciation of Australian English differs quite significantly from the standard pronunciation in Great Britain, the Received Pronunciation, due to the Irish influence . Influences of the London Cockney on Australian English are also discussed.

Geographical and social distribution

Australian English is relatively homogeneous compared to British English and has no distinctive dialects. However, research has now recognized that there is regional variation in Australia as well. However, there is agreement in research that there are social variants in Australian English: A distinction is made between Broad , General and Cultivated Australian English , with Cultivated Australian English being the most prestigious variant, which is also closest to the pronunciation of British English. Broad Australian English is on the other end of the spectrum, has the least prestige, and is spoken by about a third of Australians.

In addition to the social variants of Australian English, which are mainly spoken by the descendants of European immigrants, there are also socio-ethnic variants of Australian English: Aboriginal English , which is spoken in particular by the Aborigines in Northern Australia, and the English-based creole languages Kriol and Torres Strait Creole .

pronunciation

Vowels and consonants

Australian English differs from other variants of English, such as British or American English, in its pronunciation. B. by higher vowels in words like bit , bat and bet . Because of this, fish and chips in Australian English sounds more like feesh and cheeps to the ears of non-Australians . In some words, like very or lonely , the i-sound in the last syllable is pronounced more like in beat ([i:]) than like in bit ([ɪ]). In contrast, Australians use schwa ([ə]) in many unstressed syllables . In word pairs like boxes / boxers or chatted / chattered , schwa is always used in the second syllable. This means that boxes and boxers are phonically identical in Australian English (homophonic), as is chatted / chattered - in contrast to British English, where the pronunciation of the words is different. In words like face , mouth or price one hears very broad diphthongs that are spoken stretched and whose starting and ending points also differ from RP, e.g. B. [fæes] for face or [mæɔθ] for mouth .

Australian English, like British and New Zealand English, is non- Rhotic ; H. the r-sound is only pronounced at the beginning of words or syllables.

intonation

Typical of the intonation in Australian English is the tendency to stress to have to rise to the end of a sentence (as in English with questions).

grammar

Word formation

A noticeable feature of Australian English is its tendency to use the -ie and -o suffixes to form short forms for different words:

  • Aussie for Australian (Australian, Australian)
  • Chrissie for Christmas (Christmas)
  • brekkie for breakfast (breakfast)
  • Barbie for barbecue (BBQ)
  • mozzie for mosquito (mosquito / gnat )
  • cardie for cardigan (cardigan)
  • garbo for garbage man (garbage man)
  • hubbie for husband (husband)
  • lippie for lipstick (lipstick)

The same applies to place names, such as Oz instead of Australia , Brissie for Brisbane or Tassie for Tasmania .

syntax

In Australian English, there are little specifically Australian sentence constructions and syntactic phenomena. Among the phenomena that have been observed are the increased use of mustn't instead of can't . Furthermore, there is a tendency in Australian English to use more irregular participles, where regular variants are used in American English and partly in British English: gotten , proven instead of got , proved . Australian English is also characterized by the use of but at the end of a sentence instead of however or though .

vocabulary

There are some examples of specific Australian-English vocabulary such as B. cobber ( Eng . 'Mate, friend') or bush in the sense of 'local', 'Australian' or 'rural' in words like bush rat or bushfire . There are also some borrowings from the native languages ​​of Australia, such as B. kangaroo , koala or wombat . Some terms associated with the country itself have also developed specifically in Australia. Thus outback and bush terms that have been specially marked by the land outside the cities. walkabout and dreamtime are translated terms from the culture of the indigenous people, the Aborigines , from whose language terms such as kangaroo , boomerang or billabong (water hole) were also adopted.

Further examples:

  • Strine (contracted from Australian ) for your own language
  • G'Day instead of Good Day
  • Ha ye goin '? (the standard English How are you? preferred variant of how are you ? )
  • Yagunna avashowah? (like in "Cockney" ( Are you going to have a shower? ))
  • eggnisher ( air-conditioner )
  • (bloody) bastard - spoken with the long first "a" - ranges in meaning from " bastard " to "rascal", depending on use, emphasis and people involved
  • mate ( buddy ) can be both the real buddy friend, as well as the casual address of an unknown passer-by: Ay, mate, gotta ciggy? or Ay, mate, gotta dart? ( Hey, buddy, do you have a fag? ). The word also exists in standard English, but is used much less often there.

spelling

The spelling of Australian English fluctuates between the spelling of British and American English, with British spelling tending to be preferred, for example behavior as in British English rather than behavior as in American English. For the endings - ize / - ise , -ise is preferred.

discourse

Australian English also has a reputation for using curses and swear words in abundance, often to reinforce a statement. Whether this tendency to swear is more pronounced than in other English-speaking countries is still the subject of scientific discussion.

research

Australian English, like other varieties of English, is the subject of scientific research. Particular attention is paid to the description of the pronunciation of Australian English, regional and social variations and the demarcation from New Zealand English.

There are also some significant collections ( corpora ) of spoken and written Australian English, including the Australian component of the International Corpus of English (ICE-AUS) and the Australian Corpus of English (ACE) at Macquarie University .

literature

General descriptions and grammars

  • David Blair, Peter Collins: English in Australia , John Benjamin Publ. Co., 2001, ISBN 1-556-19729-2 .
  • Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann (Ed.): Varieties of English 3. The Pacific and Australasia . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019637-5 .
  • Klaus Hansen, Uwe Carls, Peter Lucko: The differentiation of English into national variants: an introduction. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-503-03746-2 .

Dictionaries

  • Susan Butler: The Dinkum Dictionary. The Origins of Australian Words , Text Publishing Company, Melbourne 2001, ISBN 1-877008-48-6 .
  • Arthur Delbridge (Ed.): Aussie Talk. The MacQuarie Dictionary of Australian Colloquialisms , MacQuarie Library, Sydney 1984, ISBN 0-949757-63-2 .
  • Lenie (Midge) Johansen: The Dinkum Dictionary. A ripper guide to Aussie English , Viking O'Neil, Claremont 1988, ISBN 0-670-90419-8 .
  • William Stanley Ramson: Australian English: An Historical Study of the Vocabulary, 1788–1898. Australian National University Press. Canberra 1966.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ For the official language code "en-AU" for Australian English see the International Organization for Standardization (here: ISO 639-1 and ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 ) and the Internet standard ( IETF language tag ).
  2. ↑ David Blair: The English in Australia and New Zealand . In: Rüdiger Ahrens, Wolf-Dietrich Bald, Werner Hüllen: Handbook of English as a Foreign Language . Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-503-03067-0 , pp. 41-43.
  3. ↑ David Blair: The English in Australia and New Zealand . In: Rüdiger Ahrens, Wolf-Dietrich Bald, Werner Hüllen: Handbook of English as a Foreign Language . Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-503-03067-0 , p. 43.
  4. ↑ Pam Peters, Peter Collins, Adam Smith (Eds.): Comparative Studies in Australian and New Zealand English . John Benjamin, Amsterdam / Philadelphia 2009, ISBN 978-90-272-4899-2 .
  5. ^ Gerhard Leitner: The Aborigines of Australia , 3rd edition. Beck, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-406-72993-5 , p. 11.
  6. ^ Ian G. Malcolm: Australian Creoles and Aboriginal English: phonetics and phonology . In: Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann (Ed.): Varieties of English 3. The Pacific and Australasia . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019637-5 , pp. 124-125.
  7. ^ David Crystal: English as a Global Language , 2nd edition. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003, ISBN 978-0-521-53032-3 , pp. 40-41.
  8. ↑ Barbara M. Horvath: Australian English: phonology . In: Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann (Ed.): Varieties of English 3. The Pacific and Australasia . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019637-5 , pp. 89-90.
  9. ↑ Klaus Hansen, Uwe Carls, Peter Lucko: The differentiation of English into national variants: an introduction. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-503-03746-2 , p. 161.
  10. ↑ David Blair: The English in Australia and New Zealand . In: Rüdiger Ahrens, Wolf-Dietrich Bald, Werner Hüllen: Handbook of English as a Foreign Language . Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-503-03067-0 , pp. 42-43.
  11. ↑ Barbara M. Horvath: Australian English: phonology . In: Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann (Ed.): Varieties of English 3. The Pacific and Australasia . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019637-5 , pp. 94-95.
  12. ↑ Barbara M. Horvath: Australian English: phonology . In: Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann (Ed.): Varieties of English 3. The Pacific and Australasia . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019637-5 , p. 103.
  13. ↑ Klaus Hansen, Uwe Carls, Peter Lucko: The differentiation of English into national variants: an introduction. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-503-03746-2 , p. 161.
  14. ↑ Klaus Hansen, Uwe Carls, Peter Lucko: The differentiation of English into national variants: an introduction. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-503-03746-2 , p. 166.
  15. ↑ Peter Collins, Pam Peters: Australian English: morphology and syntax . In: Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann (Ed.): Varieties of English 3. The Pacific and Australasia . Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-019637-5 , pp. 344-345.
  16. ↑ Klaus Hansen, Uwe Carls, Peter Lucko: The differentiation of English into national variants: an introduction. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-503-03746-2 , p. 166.
  17. ↑ Klaus Hansen, Uwe Carls, Peter Lucko: The differentiation of English into national variants: an introduction. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-503-03746-2 , pp. 163-166.
  18. ↑ Klaus Hansen, Uwe Carls, Peter Lucko: The differentiation of English into national variants: an introduction. Erich Schmidt, Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-503-03746-2 , p. 163.
  19. ↑ Keith Allan, Kate Burridge: Swearing. In: Pam Peters, Peter Collins, Adam Smith (Eds.): Comparative Studies in Australian and New Zealand English . John Benjamin, Amsterdam / Philadelphia 2009, ISBN 978-90-272-4899-2 , pp. 361-386
  20. ↑ Peter Collins: Prologue . In: Pam Peters, Peter Collins, Adam Smith (Eds.): Comparative Studies in Australian and New Zealand English . John Benjamin, Amsterdam / Philadelphia 2009, ISBN 978-90-272-4899-2 , pp. 361-386, p. 3.